Today’s flower seeds April 14, 2013

This is far from being everything for the day, but here are the flower seeds I plan on planting today. Some are being planted for specific purposes. An example of this is the marigolds that will help keep root nemotodes away. Others, such as nasturtium, will hopefully act as a trap plant drawing pests away from my fruit and veggies. Some of these flowers have medicinal uses as well. The purple coneflower is a great example of this. It is also known as echinacea, known worlwide for immune boosting properties. Even the flowers with no specific purpose will add beauty for us humans and a varied food supply for beneficial insects throughout the year. Some insects have a relationship with specific plants such as swallow tail butterflies and pipe vine. Others have more general needs such as european honey bees, which will take just about any nectar or pollen they can get. This makes it important to plant a diversity including native plants in your garden. I have some transplants and veggie seeds planned for today as well…..let’s see how far I get 🙂 I’ll try to remember to update as the day progresses but my regular readers know how that goes sometimes.

The potato plan February 9, 2013

I posted the process of creating a bed for a double row of potatoes a couple weeks ago and, after a little research, I plan to plant companions in the bed tomorrow.  Plants from the cabbage family seem to grow well with potatoes, so most of my cold weather veggies can be planted in the middle of the potato rows.  This includes cabbage, kale, and broccoli.  In warmer weather beans and corn both do well with potatoes.  Perhaps I will plant beans here as the cabage family is finishing off in late spring.
Some plants help to repel Colorado Potato Beetles.  These include tansy, nasturtium, coriander, catnip, flax, and lamium.  I already have nasturtium seeds and will sow them directly into the soil after the danger of frost has passed.  Nasturtiums also repel a wide range of other pests.  One possible problem is that they prefer poor soil.  I have not ammended this bed with any compost or manure so hopefully it will be poor enough for them.

If I plant beans and corn here at the same time as the nasturtium the vines, which generally stay under 2′ tall, should grow up the corn.  Eventually the beans may over take them but that is ok.  Nasturtium leaves and flowers are edible and delicious in salads.  I may add some flax, catnip, or coriander as well but I do not have a definate plan to do so.  I do not really use coriander in my cooking, nor do I have a cat or care for catnip tea.  Flax interests me but I know there is not the space for much.  Still, I would like to try my hands at making linen and do use flaxseed oil.  These are all things to consider when planting your companions.  Each plant should be useful to you as well as groupings being planted to benefit each other. 
You can also interplant crops that will grow quickly and be finished before potato digging time.  Radishes, scallions, spinach, and leaf lettuce can all be good choices for this.  Since I am not living on the property to be looking after such crops I do not plan to do this but if you are planting in the yard where you live and want the most productive space possible give it a try.  one nice thing with potatoes is that they store well in place so if a longer standing crop is planted over them you can just wait to dig the potatoes. This does leave them in a place where root pests can get at the though so keep that in mind when planting.
Some plants should not be planted near or after one another due to similar nutrient needs or similar disease and pest problems.  For potatoes avoid planting after or before tomatoes, eggplant and peppers.  A few others are rumored to increase the risk of blight as well so avoid cucumbers, raspberries, sunflowers, pumpkin, squash (both summer and winter) and tomatoes for this reason.  Tomatoes and potatoes seem to be especially good as passing pests and diseases back and forth so absolutely avoid planting them near each other or planting one after the other. 

Tomato transplanting January 30, 2013

Since I started these little guys 2 months before they can be planted outside they may require transplanting one more time before going in their garden beds. Their roots were just starting to escape the peat pods and most are getting their first true leaves. At this point they begin to use soil nutrients and will appreciate fertilizer and soil amendments. Since they will be growing at my property I decided to use soil from there in the mix for their new pots. I added about 1 part peat per 2 parts soil and mixed in some fish fertilizer (2-2-2) and bone meal (6-9-0) to the mix along with a little lime and a couple of crumbled egg shells. The nitrogen from bone meal is insoluble and will slowly become available to the plants. The nitrogen in the fish fertilizer is mostly soluble and will be available to my seedlings immediately. For those who do not know nitrogen is the first number of the 3 numbers on fertilizer labels. Phosphate is the second number on the label and is very important for baby plants. The fish fertilizer also has potash which is the third number on the label. This nutrient isn’t found in bone meal so it has a 0. Bonemeal does have calcium though, which is not represented in the typical 3 numbers on the label. The bone meal I am using is 7 percent calcium. If tomatoes do not have enough calcium you will have problems with blossom end rot, among other things. The egg shells and lime are also to provide calcium. Lime is also used to lower soil ph. I haven’t taken my soil sample into the Clemson extension office for testing yet but I know it is a bit acidic and so is peat. Still I used it sparingly in the mix. I will get my soil sample in sometime this weeks and once I have the results back I will be amending the area of the future planting beds according to the recomendations from Clemson University.

bone meal label

fish fertilizer label

lovely mix for my baby tomatoes

organic peat moss to help with drainage and moisture retention

My propery has a natural layer of peat but I bought some just for starting seeds since the stuff in the bag is nice and clean and digging enough for all of my seed starting needs and cleaning it up enough to use would be a bit more of a chore than I have time for at this point. I would like to invest in enough terracotta to do all of my seed starting and transplanting, or learn more about making soil blocks but for now I am using commercially available seed starter pots that come in a tray. I will be able to reuse them a few times, but eventually these will end up in a landfill. Doint things on a budget require compromise sometimes though and I know it.

I also bought labels you can write on. To save money and have less waste I labeled each group of seedling instead of labeling every plant. I would have just stuck to my lists but with multiple trays I think I would have ended up confusing things.

For now I kept the soil level at the same height as the top of the peat pods. Tomatoes are one of the few plants that you can burry deeper when transplanting, but there is no need for that at this point in things. I am not thinning them yet either because I want to be able to save the thinnings and they are too tender to withstand that much handling at this point in their growth. That’s all for now, unless I give a pecan update before getting ready for work. It will have to be a quick one but I think I just might…

Yay potatoes January 27, 2013

Last week I found onions starts, seed potatoes, and bare root strawberries for sale so I bought a little bit of everything.  I came home with 3 types of onion starts(210 baby onions total), 20 each of 3 types of strawberry plants, and 3lbs each of 2 types of seed potatoes.  The strawberry plants and onion starts I planted on the same day I moved the last 2 peach trees.  The potatoes however have to have a bit of prep work before planting.
I started the process by first leaving them in a bucket with inoculated, damp peat overnight to establish beneficial bacteria and fungus on the surface of the potato skin.  The following day I cut them into chunks, leaving a minimum of 2 nice eyes per section.  Then I spread them out all over the table to dry, allowing the cut parts to harden up some.  Having good bacteria already in place should help keep the bad bacteria that can rot the potato away.  Today I planted them, and for a change I actually remembered to take pictures step by step so here they are.

laying out a boundry with swamp magnolia

laying down a THIN layer of newspaper and spacing the potatoes out on it

I covered it with a little bit of peat, dug from where my driveway will be

milipede found while digging peat

over the peat I places sticks that should help keep digging critters from digging here (Ihope)

after that I added a layer of pine needles and leaf litter

finally I coved it all with top soil from the future driveway.

I made quite a messy little hole today and it will get worse as I add more soil to the top of my potatoes. I just can't justify driving on such lovely soil.

Why I write EVERYTHING down January 26, 2013

Have you ever planted something and then forgotten what it was or forgotten where you planted it.  Could you tell the difference between these seedlings if they weren’t labeled?

I know I sure can’t.  This is why I write everything down.  As I plant things I either map, label, or list it.  Here is my paper from the day I planted my cool weather tray and warm weather (mostly tomatoes) tray.

It has listed the type, specific variety, and number of plants of that type.  This is the back of some unimportant mail I got and when finished serving this purpose it can still be recycled or fed to the worms.  It is certainly nothing fancy but it does the trick.  If it were not for this list I would be lost.  I consider blogging something as good as writing something down on paper.  The point is to document what you are planting so later on you know what it is.  From there it is easy to look up any more specific information you may need.